


War on Terra

by punchdrunkard (twopunch)



Category: Horus Heresy - Various Authors, Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Community: areyougame, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-22
Updated: 2012-07-22
Packaged: 2017-11-12 20:10:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/495202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twopunch/pseuds/punchdrunkard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Horus wakes up.</p>
<p>Prompt: <i>Warhammer 40K, Horus Lupercal, Sanguinius: Memory Loss - What did I miss?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	War on Terra

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Somehow I wrote this as "/" before I realised it was "," so if there are some artifacts in the text of that, I apologize for interrogating my own text from the wrong perspective.
> 
> Written for the [areyougame community](http://areyougame.dreamwidth.org/) fic challenge 2012. Edited ever so slightly from the original post, and un-beta'd both times.

Horus woke up with what felt like a blunt hammer wedged between his eyes and the taste of an animal six days dead on a jungle world sitting in his mouth.

“My dear brother!” The too-chipper voice pierced his headache like a chainsword with a loose track, and Horus resolved then and there to kill whichever brother had just exacerbated his pains, as soon as said pains went away. Then a cool, wet towel was draped over his face. It blocked some of the light that was defying the curtain of his eyelids. Maybe he would only maim his brother. “Drink this.” Bruise, Horus decided, after he’d sipped what he was given and the battle for the inside of his skull declared a ceasefire.

Horus opened his eyes carefully, lids gummy and crusted. Winced them shut again at the brightness of the world. He wrinkled his nose as he registered his own rank smell wafting from the gorget of his armour. Why was he in his power armour? The last thing he remembered -- he sat up in alarm and forced his eyes open. The blurry outline of an angel resolved itself, crouched by his side where he had been lying on the floor.

He punched Sanguinius in the arm.

“What happened? What did I miss?” Horus said, slipping off a gauntlet and running his hand over his grimy face.

Sanguinius had almost tipped over from the blow, saved by the extra balance provided by his wings. He was rubbing his bare arm, a fist-shaped bruise rapidly forming on his pale skin. Horus hadn't registered Sanguinius wasn’t in his armour, and he tried to keep the guilt off his face. “What did you miss? You missed _everything_ ,” Sanguinius replied in a low growl. There was blood on his neck, Horus noticed, blood staining the simple white robes he was wearing. Blood on his own armour, too, blood everywhere in the strategium of the _Vengeful Spirit_.

“Tell me.” Danger shoved the pain in his head away, as did the thrill of desire that always ran through his body at the hint of violence in his brother’s voice.

“War, of course. War has come to Terra.”

Horus was on his feet, staggering as the world spun around him. No. _No_. He could smell the flat ozone trace of lasgun fire in the air, saw the blasted tables and shattered walls, the banners scorched and torn from where they had hung. How long had he been out? Who could’ve done this? Where were his brothers? His men? His father?

How could he have let this happen?

Sanguinius picked up the gauntlet Horus had dropped, his face hard and mouth drawn thin with tension. His wings shivered. Horus strode over to the remains of the command dais, where his helmet was sitting upside down on the table. He reached out to pick it up, then paused, his mind clearing with the adrenaline rush. Sanguinius’s wings were ever an indicator of his moods.

He spun around to attack Sanguinius, who sprung into the air with a flap, laughing.

“Oh Terra, the look on your face,” Sanguinius said through gasping breaths, clutching at his stomach as he glided just out of Horus’s reach. Horus went back for his helmet, hefted it, and threw it at Sanguinius. His brother caught the projectile easily and landed, perched on the rails of one of the balconies in the upper levels. “I admit it was a poor jest, but you deserved it!” He tossed Horus’s helmet back. “I wouldn’t put that on anytime soon, if I were you. I think Mortarion made use of it.”

“Come down here, my dear,” Horus said, casting about for a sword or a bolter to kill his brother with.

“I like it up here better,” replied Sanguinius cheerfully. He reached behind him and pulled out a jar, which he pitched down at Horus’s head. Horus caught it with his unarmoured hand, lest he shatter it on his gauntleted one, and recognised the innocuous brown container with a renewed stab of pain in his head.

“Russ,” Horus said, “Russ and his damn mead.” He put the jar down and leaned against the intact half of the dais, massaging his temples.

“Do you have the correct target for your ire now? May I come down?”

Horus waved a hand in consent at Sanguinius’s general direction. A moment later, with a gentle breeze of air, Sanguinius landed on the table carrying two more jars. “Where did all the blood come from?” Horus asked, removing his remaining gauntlet so he could grind his palms into his eyes.

“The Vlka Fenryka like to celebrate in the old way, apparently.”

A cool toe poked the back of Horus’s head and slid down his tense neck muscles. Horus grunted.

“Lots of fresh meat and impromptu duels with sharp objects. It was fun, I have to admit. I’m surprised you challenged him to a drinking contest though.”

Another toe joined the first, then they drifted to his shoulder pauldrons and tugged back lightly, encouragingly. Horus resisted. He was still angry, damn it.

There was a rustle of cloth, of rubble being swept to the floor. “Horus,” Sanguinius said, cajoling. “You stink. Let me take off your armour.”

“It was a bad joke,” Horus grumbled, refusing to turn around. He crossed his arms and frowned at the ruins of his strategium. As the newly declared Warmaster, he decided, his first act would be to order all barrels of Fenrisian alcohol lit on fire and thrown at worlds refusing compliance. He wasn’t going to waste material, after all.

“Lupercal,” Sanguinius said, sighing, “I’m sorry, but you did punch me first. I won’t even bring up the mess you made of my armour last night. The Mechanicum guests were crying when they saw it, and half of them don’t even have tear ducts.”

“It still wasn’t funny.” He hoped someone had taken pictures of the celebrations, then hoped no-one had as more memories came back.

“Let me make it up to you then. Russ assures me the best cure is another drink.” A feather tickled his ear. He turned to join his brother with a laugh, never truly able to resist him for long.

It took weeks before the strategium was restored to its former glory, and that was only because the tech adepts had fallen into depression over the ruins of Horus’s power armour.


End file.
